Windows XP crashing Issues!

[Legacy_Dark]

               Hey guys,

So, I’ve been working on my mod for almost 2 years now. The mod is now in the final stages of getting released and is currently in beta.

One of the beta testers is using Windows XP SP3. The issue is, once he enters into the Catacombs level 1 the game will crash on his as it tries loading. It will never get into the game, it will show the load screen progress bar and stops as it’s loading up.

At first I was skeptical of his laptop and decided to load up XP on an older pc and give it a try myself. Sure enough it crashes as he said. So I made all kinds of changes to the environments sounds thinking possibly this might be an issue. But that did not help. But here’s the weird part. You can drop a start point down, and you are able to load up into the game, but once you change levels back up to the temple level and come back down again, the game will lock up on the load screen.

I even went to the point of removing everything off this level to see if that was causing the issue. It made no difference. Prior to this, there are several areas you are able to play in before you enter the catacombs. No issues there.

Windows 7 and Win 8 have no issues at all changing level back and forth. The mods been tested a hundred times like this and not once has there ever been a crash. I would say, the HAK file is the culprit, but since Win 7 has none of those issues It can’t be that.

I’m left with the thought that XP is a POS OS and there has to be a driver issue going on here that is not compatible with NWN.

Does anyone have any information on this or has anyone seen this in the past?

I’m not to overly concerned with wasting a lot of time trying to figure this out because XP is a very old OS and most people are using Win 7 now. I would like or hope to figure it out, but again, I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this either.

Any thoughts anyone?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               when you lay down the starting location to the area in question do you paint in near the doors exit?

everytime i seen this error it was caused by override or mismatch in haks, i dont think testing on different OS has meaning since you obviously dont test it on the same machine...
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Dark]

               Hey Shadow,

Yes I did in fact paint it close by an exit. I dont use the over ride, so how do I determine the hak file having issues? How do you sort that out?

Also, isn't it kind of odd that only XP has this issue? and not happening with Win 7??
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Dark, 14 août 2013 - 09:46 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

Dark wrote...

Hey Shadow,

Yes I did in fact paint it close by an exit. I dont use the over ride, so how do I determine the hak file having issues? How do you sort that out?

Also, isn't it kind of odd that only XP has this issue? and not happening with Win 7??

1) override is not serverside, so it doesnt matter if you dont use it, the client that is having the issues can - did he temporarily removed override ? also he should temporary disable all preloaded haks via nwpatch.ini and if he has community patch he should temporary uninstall it too, each of these three things in order so you/we found out the cause and we can fix it.
2) well redownloading haks could help, sometimes especially if you uses automatic hak updater/distribuition or you uses same name for new hak version (so those who got older version can log in without downloading new version). If you dont do any of this its hardly a hak issue though.

Now the OS dependand thingy, does multiple peoples on win XP has this same issue? If not it is not OS dependant - actually I never come across a XP only issue, there are some linux only issues (because there is special client/server for them) but if there was anything it was messed by newer OS not the OS it was built for.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Dark]

               Shadow,

So, I've bane doing testing here at my house with a Dell OptiPlex PC wit ha 9600 GT NVidia card in it. latest's drivers too. Still crashing. I have no idea what's causing this. I removed the sound and put it on the basic card. removed all of the sound from that level so there is no sounds loading up.

Video on basic settings. no help.

Really frustrating issue. I'm an NT Administrator to, I've tried everything I can think of, I'm left with thinking its the OS. I cant think of anything else it could be.

This is a fresh install of the OS too, no other crap installed except the game and the latest drivers.

BTW, the mod is all local to the pc no internet.  no override or anything in it.

Oh well!!
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Dark, 14 août 2013 - 11:43 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

Dark wrote...

Shadow,

So, I've bane doing testing here at my house with a Dell OptiPlex PC wit ha 9600 GT NVidia card in it. latest's drivers too. Still crashing. I have no idea what's causing this. I removed the sound and put it on the basic card. removed all of the sound from that level so there is no sounds loading up.

Video on basic settings. no help.

Really frustrating issue. I'm an NT Administrator to, I've tried everything I can think of, I'm left with thinking its the OS. I cant think of anything else it could be.

This is a fresh install of the OS too, no other crap installed except the game and the latest drivers.

BTW, the mod is all local to the pc no internet.  no override or anything in it.

Oh well!!

again, did you confirmed that another XP user has the same issue? (try both sp3 when you have it and sp2 just for info if the issue happen too on sp2)

alternatively, upload the area somewhere and give me link im very interested to find the issue there
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 14 août 2013 - 11:49 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Dark]

               Yes, the beta tester is the one who brought this up to me.  so I built a pc out with XP.  same issues.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <peering over...>

And please include GFX card model & driver versions for the Beta tester's machine and the one you built for testing ;-)

This sounds suspiciously like a tileset-specific problem and that makes me suspect shadows or txi issues :-P

<...the peer's shoulder>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

Dark wrote...

Yes, the beta tester is the one who brought this up to me.  so I built a pc out with XP.  same issues.

oh, missed this information from your earlier posts, ok then that is a good reason to think its OS dependant issue then

can you upload the area in question ? I assume this is with some custom content tiles right (dont forget to add haks needed to open that area then)?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_TimG]

               I have a couple of XP systems available to me.  I'll test it as well as the most important gamer in my household (wife) plays on an XP system!  If she can't play EoB2 then she'll axe murder me!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_TimG]

               crap, it crashed here at worked exactly as you said.  I used DM client and jumped to catacombs level 1 and the walked up to the temple and on the way back down the load screen locked up right away and then NWN went down.  This is an XP SP3 Dell with an ATI card.  It's a work PC but it has seen a LOT of NWN.
I have another PC here I will try to test later today
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               If vanilla NWN works fine on these PCs, I'd rule out an OS issue and start focusing on the haks - and specifically whatever tileset you used to build that area. The behavior you describe sounds tileset related.

Just in case it is really an OS isuue - you might also want to download DirectX 9.0c SDK and run that - its possible some element is missing in XP that is present in other Windows OSs. Also do you have anti-aliasing or shiny water on? Try turning these off.

Also, if you got the game through GOG or Impulse - did you run the 1.69 Critical Rebuild? If not, run it. Although both GOG and Impulse (and some users on here too) claim that the game is properly patched to v1.69, there is considerable evidence to say its not. Many uses have had issues with the GOG and Impulse releases that werre resolved by running the critical rebuild.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Pstemarie, 15 août 2013 - 05:53 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Dark]

               Yes, the critical updates were run, so I’m ruling this out.  Rolo now has the tileset and is going to go through them and check to see if there are any issues causing this.  But again, it makes no sense what so ever that Xp is the only OS having this issue.  I’m still leaning towards the OS and possibly a driver issues.  As for the DX SDK. I’ll have to give that a shot and see.

I’m hoping this can get fixed, and it’s a driver or the tileset causing it.  

Thanks everyone for the help,
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Dark]

               Shadow,  if you like send me an email Ill send you an invite to the drop box folder to get the mod and try it for yourself.

Thanks,
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_TimG]

               I just tried it on an HP WinXP Pro box with the same crash results.  This box has a 9800GT card in it whereas the Dell from the earlier test is ATI.  I think that would rule out a video card driver.  I don't know much about this sort of thing but will try different computer combos.  I have 3 more XP machines at home on the NWNetwork...